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Protecting sources is a legal and moral duty

The DPP may have to produce guidelines setting out when journalists are allowed to pay for information

Geoffrey Robertson

February 15 2012, 12:01am, The Times

The most fundamental tenet of journalism is set out in clause 14 of the newspaper industry’s Code of Practice. It was drafted by Les Hinton, former chairman of News International, and reads: “Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources of information.”

It was worded before the advent of the Human Rights Act and the great case of Goodwin v UK, which established that this obligation was legal as well as moral. A journalist, Bill Goodwin, was convicted of contempt after judges ruled that he had no right to protect the source of a story.

But the European Court ruled, in words that members of News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee should be required to learn by heart: “Protection of journalistic sources is one…